


Baby, You Can Drive my Car

by cognomen, MayGlenn



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Carhop AU, Complete, Cute Alien Hunting Trio, Established FinnRey seeks hot motorcycle boyfriend for third, F/M, Gratuitous Racing, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Non Humanoid Alien, One Shot, Street Racing, Sugar sweet with a little heat, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 06:47:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16470770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayGlenn/pseuds/MayGlenn
Summary: The sun sets on another day; those last lingering days of summer where the heat dies off quickly in the evening, but dares you to wear a jacket out  with the threat of cooking you in the afternoon. Poe’s glad he can sling his leather jacket on over his shoulders as the evening sky smears from red to purple, the distant horizon colored with clouds and dimming light.Poe pulls into the space near the table, since he wouldn’t dream of trying to hook a metal tray onto his motorcycle, and kicks down the stand, pausing to rev the bike a couple times because he likes the way the engine sounds, likes how it cuts through the radio sounds playing from several of the other cars, and puts all the eyes on him. Then he cuts the engine, runs a comb through his wind-tousled hair, and settles down at the picnic table to wait for Rey to get off her shift.Finn, as usual, is a little late. He studies too hard for his own good, Poe thinks, but it’s one of his endearing qualities. They’ve both developed a thing for milkshakes since coming to town.Or, the cute 50's Carhop AU, playing dress-up just in time for Halloween.





	Baby, You Can Drive my Car

The sun sets on another day; those last lingering days of summer where the heat dies off quickly in the evening, but dares you to wear a jacket out  with the threat of cooking you in the afternoon. Poe’s glad he can sling his leather jacket on over his shoulders as the evening sky smears from red to purple, the distant horizon colored with clouds and dimming light.

He pulls into the space near the table, since he wouldn’t dream of trying to hook a metal tray onto his motorcycle, and kicks down the stand, pausing to rev the bike a couple times because he likes the way the engine sounds, likes how it cuts through the radio sounds playing from several of the other cars, and puts all the eyes on him. Then he cuts the engine, runs a comb through his wind-tousled hair, and settles down at the picnic table to wait for Rey to get off her shift.

Finn, as usual, is a little late. He studies too hard for his own good, Poe thinks, but it’s one of his endearing qualities. They’ve both developed a thing for milkshakes since coming to town.

And a thing for each other, which is a nice development.

Finn adjusts his glasses when he spots Poe, and wonders if he is being personally victimized by how Poe’s ass looks in those jeans. And the boots? When did he develop a boot fetish? Maybe it’s the smell of leather and motor oil that Poe always has around him that’s making him think crazy things about footwear. And now his glasses are fogging up.

“Hi, Poe,” Finn says, trying to hang onto his books and notebooks while taking his glasses off to clean them. He knows how lucky he is, that the handsomest guy at the carhop is talking to _him_ , and he blushes, trying to look and feel less awkward and amazed about it. “You’re early. Rey won’t be off for another half hour.”

Poe reaches out to steady Finn’s stack out of his hands and set the books on the table. “Well, that means you’re early, too, buddy. I figured I could get a shake while I waited, but two’s just as good as one, huh?”

He flashes Finn a bright smile, because he loves to see Finn get all flustered. The glasses make him look studious, but at the same time they compliment his features well. Square and mannish on top, with thin wire supporting the lenses, and all that compliments his easy style. Finn _looks_ like a college boy, through and through, but he wears it well.

“Yeah,” Finn agrees readily, all the more flustered and not sure what Poe was even talking about, and maybe not caring. Why did he have to be so dreamy? The things a leather jacket did to Poe’s figure...

“Besides, we can give her an excuse to hustle for that last half hour,” Poe says, easing his hands into his pockets and leaning around Finn to look for Rey on her roller skates. “Not like I mind seeing how quick she gets on those things. Like poetry in motion.”

“Right,” Finn agrees hastily. The pretense that they were both here fighting over Rey’s affections is pretty flimsy by this point, as jealousy has morphed into its own kind of desire. Just when Finn thinks he's made up his sexuality, Rey zooms past on her rollerskates, the skirt never short enough, and she smiles at them.

“You're early!” she calls, and then is gone.

“We want a milkshake!” Poe calls back, but she’s already on her way. He figures she’ll come back around for them.

Her hair, Finn thinks, is tied up in a ponytail with a ribbon, and Finn is confident it's the cutest thing he's ever seen. He might just explode trapped between the two of them if he doesn't do something.

“So I made some new calculations…” he blurts out, opening all of his notebooks, apparently, to demonstrate this.

Poe laughs, but he looks at the calculations Finn’s about to show off. “Yeah? I was starting to think we were gonna hit a brick wall.”

He leans in over Finn’s shoulder, cocking his hip to look down at the equations, but before they can get any further, Rey zooms up on her roller skates with a tray balanced on her hip. “Okay, boys, I heard somebody say a milkshake. Nobody’s pulling my leg, right?”

“Would we do that?” Poe leans on Finn’s shoulder and gives her an innocent look.

“Well, you never have any money!” she teases, swinging her ponytail. “You spend it all on that death machine of yours, and your hair.”

Poe holds up his hands. “Jeez, you caught me. I mean, I got enough for a milkshake though. Chocolate, please?”

“You got it,” she says, getting ready to kick off and take his order in.

“And two straws - no three!” Poe calls after her, as she zooms away, skirt swishing alluringly around her knees, though Poe is much more entranced by how graceful she looks, all balanced on her skates. After a pause, during which Finn looks after Rey just as much, Poe leans in to Finn’s ear. “You got a couple bucks I can borrow?”

“Poe!” Finn complains, but rummages for a wad of bills, trying not to feel like his lunch money is being stolen by a popular kid, even if said popular kid is very handsome and Finn is glad to share with him. “I want change from that. And will you look at my calculations? I think we've been looking in the wrong place. After Rey gets off work we should go look for that shooting star again.”

“You think you got a better idea now?” Poe looks at the calculations, at first intending to just glance them over, but finally he has to sit down and really look at them, Finn’s impeccable handwriting leading him through a series of calculations he has to really struggle with. He’s not a fool, of course he can calculate a velocity, but triangulation was never really his strong suit. Finally, he untucks a survey map of the county from the back of Finn’s notebook and looks at it. “This is still a five mile radius, but that’s a heck of a lot closer than we got just aiming for where we thought it landed.”

Not that Poe really cares if they’re out there searching and come up with nothing. He hardly minds spending time with Finn and Rey, even if it’s basically just ghost hunting. “We gotta get back here by nine, though. I gotta race.”

Finn slams his hand down on his work, raising his voice to scolding. “A _what_ , Poe?”

A few people nearby look at them briefly, but most of them are quickly more interested in their dates again, especially when Finn scowls at them, gaining new confidence all of a sudden. He glares at Poe, saying _This wasn't part of the plan_ with his eyes.

“A _race_ ,” Poe says, trying to smooth things over. “I know you hate excitement, but if I win I can pay you back for the milkshake and I’ll have a couple more connections I didn’t before. It’s beneficial to all of us.”

Rey skates back up, setting a fluted glass with a milkshake in it on the table, and looks at both of them. “ _What_ is?”

“Nothing,” Finn says, swiping the milkshake for first slurps. The chocolate does calm his mood enough that when he pulls back and slides the shake to the center of the table again, he can show Rey his calculations. “I think I've narrowed it down a little better. We can go for a drive when you're off work, but Poe has to be back by nine.”

Rey takes her own sip of the milkshake, hollowing her cheeks to get a chunk of ice cream up the straw.

Finn and Poe stare at her.

“Yeah, I've got a good feeling about this,” Rey says, tapping the map. “I think we should start here.”

Finn almost laughs, blushing. “You mean Make-out Point?”

Poe laughs, paying Rey for the shake, and gesturing that the change goes back to Finn while she gives him a knowing look. Poe shrugs it off with a grin. “Sure, you two can cover make out point while I take a hike. I see how it is.”

Rey leans in to kiss Finn’s cheek, leaving a small ice cream smear on his skin and Poe settles down across the table to finally have some of the shake he’d ordered. This place has _very_ good milkshakes, at least, and Poe hardly minds meeting up here after Rey’s shift because he gets a chance to spend time with both of them. He knows the summer days can't last forever, but for now there's time.

“Okay, so I got some big flashlights too, Buddy. This’d be easier if we could hunt during the day…” Of course Poe has to keep his bare amount of respectability by working part time as a mechanic, and Finn has classes, and Rey is here all day. “If we haven't found it by the weekend, we should go out early on Saturday.”

“Yeah, I know a good place,” Rey says with a coy wink as another server, one of Rey's friends, passes them, and gives Rey a thumbs-up she thinks the boys don't see.

It's simultaneously convenient and frustrating that they have to go out under the pretense of necking just to look for this falling star. Rey is waiting for the boys to _notice_ that they're good as a team in other ways than finding crash-landed aliens.

“Do you actually wanna find a UFO, or are you just looking at making out as many different places as you can?” Poe asks, as much to see Finn blush as anything else. It’s kinda hard to tell but he always gets a _look_ , that’s just as adorable as when Rey goes pink to her eartips, like she does now. “Hey, youth should be obliged, you know.”

“I wish you’d take your own advice,” Rey says, cryptically. Then she raises her voice for the benefit of her boss, who is looking out the server window for her. “Just the milkshake today, fellas?”

“I think I’d like a burger, too, if Poe is buying,” Finn says, eyeing the leftover money on the table, as though it were Poe’s. “If Poe buys us all dinner, we’re practically obliged to take him along with us, right?”

Rey’s eyes light up, though she blushes even pinker. Finn is blushing, too.

“A round of burgers and fries, and cokes? I’ll have them ready for when I get off shift,” Rey says. “That’ll be two cr—uhh—” she giggles. “Two dollars. I’ll be right back!”

Finn grins at Poe as he puts another dollar on the table. Poe _can’t_ back out now. He suggests nonchalantly, “We could take Rey’s car.”

“And miss out on a chance to ride pillion? You’re so into safety,” Poe teases, gently. “But I guess three in a car is more practical than the other way. I mean, you could always follow me....”

“You don’t think we’d be in front?” Rey asks, all innocence, as she scoops up the money and this time makes a little note of their order to give to the chef. “I’ll be back in ten with the food, and I should be all done with my shift.”

Poe leaves a third of the milkshake for Rey, setting it aside as Finn spreads the map out on the table again. “What are we gonna do if we don’t find it here?  I mean, I guess it’s not likely that it’s just gonna get up and walk away, but I’d hate to think someone else got it first.”

“Then we’ll keep asking around. If someone was smart, they’d take it over to the science labs at the university, and I’ll hear about it there. If they’re dumb, they’ll hide it in their barn and Rey or you would overhear something here or in town, right?” Finn says, determined that their plan work out. “But probably no one’s found it yet. We’ve only been looking for two days.”

Two _agonizing_ days in Finn’s opinion, with two painfully attractive people who like to get in his space and fluster him. Rey has at least kissed him, which has been great—though, to be fair, someone had spotted them in the woods and she pushed him against a tree as part of their cover—but surely she had seemed into it for more than just cover? Poe, however, seems content to comb his hair and swagger around in tight jeans and flirt with him, but just let him suffer.

“That’s what I mean, it’s been two days, and we’ve been here even longer than _that_ trying to get ahead of this thing,” Poe says.

“Yeah. But, uh,” Finn begins, trying to lean as coolly as Poe does against the table as he tries to show Poe how interested he is in moving their relationship past strictly business and mutual admiration, “Do you _really_ think you could take Rey in a race?”

Poe laughs, and the sound isn’t as confident as it might have been, but he still manages to pull off looking casual, now that Finn’s laid the challenge down on the table like he was throwing a glove down for a duel. “I absolutely could! Of course. Doesn’t even matter what we’re racing, whether it’s hot rods or bikes…”

“Hm,” Finn says, an attempt to remain mysterious as he goes back to his books.

“Oh, no, Finn, what are you cooking?” Rey asks as she joins them at the table. She isn’t very good at skirts, straddling the bench in a very unladylike manner that is just too hot for either of them to handle. “Are you picking on Poe, telling him what I told you about him never beating my Studebaker?”

She laughs, but Finn only grins.

“I’d get off the line in half the time it’d take to get that thing started,” Poe answers, giving Rey a cocky grin. “You wanna try it? Against my Triumph?”

“You’ve made a monster,” Rey tells Finn, passing out hamburgers and dumping the fries in a communal pile in the center, with lots of ketchup. “I wouldn’t want to humiliate you, Poe. I know you have a lot of misguided faith in that motorcycle of yours.”

Finn doesn’t know why he’s encouraging this reckless behavior, but he can’t help but be a little turned on by it—by both Rey and Poe being kind of macho and competitive in their own ways, and being so good at what they do—while simultaneously being alarmed by it. He almost surprises himself by suggesting, “Maybe the winner gets to hang out at Make-out Point with me while the loser has to scout ahead?”

Rey and Poe both turn to look at him, then each other for a long moment, like they’re figuring out what Finn had suggested, then gauging each other.

“You’re on,” Rey says, reaching out to grab a handful of fries and jam them into her mouth as she heads for her car.

“Challenge accepted,” Poe agrees, grabbing his paper-wrapped burger and heading for his bike.

Apparently, Finn realizes as he sits alone at the table, they were going to take his challenge _right now_.

 _Damn it_ , Finn thinks, and scrambles up, trying to collect his precious books and notebooks. “Guys! You guys, I didn’t mean—”

Several other patrons, sensing what’s about to happen, get up from their seats and out of their cars, hooting encouragements as Poe hops on his bike, and Rey pulls her car around from the employee lot.

“Finn!” Rey calls out her window. “You’re going to have to do the flagging!”

Finn has collected the half-eaten burgers and fries, thinking they’ll want them later, and puts them in his backpack after the notebooks. If nothing else, _he’ll_ want them later; the burgers here are _amazing_.

“I don’t know how to do that,” Finn protests, but he supposes it can’t be too hard, and if he’s set himself up as the prize for this event—and they took the bait, thank everything—Finn might as well be the sexy flag-waver. “Fine.”

He pushes his glasses up his nose and removes his cardigan.

Rey actually wolf-whistles at him, but earns a glare.

They line up on a starting line, taking over the strip of street in front of the diner as an impromptu race course, getting their tires on the nose. Poe gives a couple theatrical revs of his engine, crouched low over his bike as Rey tightens her grip on the steering wheel and readies herself with less audible fanfare. Both pairs of eyes train on Finn as he holds up his cardigan.

“See you at the finish line!” Poe calls, cocky and grinning, and then Finn gives his cardigan a swish and there’s the sound of rubber squealing against concrete and the growling of engines, and Poe actually lets the front end of his bike lift off the ground to get off the starting line in a wheelie that seems to go so far vertical that the crowd makes a collective ‘punched in the stomach’ noise like they expect him to suddenly become a red smear on the pavement, but then the front tire tips back down and the race is on for real.

Rey’s faster off the block, but there’s no matching the acceleration on a motorcycle, and Rey goes from a significant lead to eating Poe’s dust faster than anyone can really comprehend with the motorcycle’s engine screaming like a pile of angry hornets, that high-pitched working whine and a thick streak of black rubber left at the starting line.

He actually has time at the finish line to turn around, put one foot down on the ground, and watch Rey cross it with a self-satisfied grin on his features, though only barely.

Finn doesn’t actually unclench his eyes until it’s over, and has to ask Rey’s coworker, Betsy, who won.

“That dreamboat of yours, Poe!” she says, nudging him and winking. “You’re a lucky man—only, don’t let Rey get _too_ jealous. I don’t think you’ll like her when she’s angry!”

Finn has gone insane, today, apparently, because he does kind of want to see that…he cuts off these thoughts, abruptly, telling himself _he’s_ not the adrenaline junkie, the two nuts he’s in love with are…

Oh, and he’s going to have Poe all to himself up at Make-out Point. He licks his lips and jogs over to the finish line.

“That was amazing!” he gushes, hugging Poe and Rey in succession. “You both survived!”

Rey, grumpy, rolls her eyes.

“Check your ram-air,” Poe suggests, helpful. “We’ll give the old girl a tuneup. She still won’t beat my bike, but she’ll accelerate faster. Alright, let me stash my ride and then we can all take the slow boat up to our search area, huh?”

He gives Betsy a wink and extracts a promise that she’ll look after his Triumph before he climbs into the front seat, squishing Finn over on the bench next to Rey, leaning back, relaxing, and Rey even eventually stops giving him dirty looks because he looks so good with his knee up on the dash, half slouched out of his seat.

Finn leans back in the seat, too, and puts an arm around each of them, though he immediately worries his pits might smell and he puts his hands back in his lap. Rey, however, raises an eyebrow at Finn until he puts it back.

“You think we’ll find it today?” Poe asks, and Rey considers before she answers.

“I hope so,” she says. “Though I really don’t mind if we have to take a little extra time with it.”

“Right,” Finn says, tucking his bag in the floorboard, since Poe isn’t using it. “There’s no rush. Especially since Rey is going to go scout for us…”

Rey jabs him in the sternum as she shifts gears between his legs, and Finn regrets the teasing. “I brought the rest of your guys’ food?” he offers as an apology.

Poe produces a slightly squashed burger from inside his jacket and unwraps it to eat, peering down into Finn’s bag as Finn produces the fries, all wrapped up in the tray liner, and Poe smiles at him, pushing his race-tousled hair back out of his eyes. “You’re the best. Besides, we can all go scout, and we’ll have plenty of time. Everybody at the Hi-Boy is gonna assume we’re necking no matter what.”

Rey’s glad, momentarily, that Finn’s between them so that her ‘you’re _so obtuse_ ’ look would have to penetrate Finn’s skull to reach Poe.

Finn can’t disagree too readily, for fear of insulting Rey, but he does pull a face at Poe’s suggestion.

Still…

“What if we _were…_ ” Finn begins, trying and failing to keep an eye on Rey and Poe simultaneously, and just gives up. “What if we check out the abandoned farmhouse after we park the car?”

“I mean, nothing says aliens like an abandoned farm, I guess,” Poe says. “It’s probably more likely we’ll find the thing outside, though.”

Rey rolls her eyes, invisible under her cat eye sunglasses, before taking them off since it's getting dark. The mission came first—but maybe she would have to detour slightly to take things into her own hands…

-

Finn and Poe finish their burgers on the way, with Rey stealing fries from Finn the whole ride, and then she pulls off in a turn-out, overlooking the area below. It’s totally dark now, outside the pool of their headlights, and then Rey shuts those off and leans back in the seat, tucking her arm around Finn’s shoulders, letting her eyes adjust to the dark.

“What do we do if we find it again?” she asks, innocently.

“Well, we have to make sure none of the locals see it,” Finn says, businesslike since Rey’s arm around his shoulder is teasing the side of his neck. “And that it doesn’t hurt anyone. And...Rey, what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she hums, sliding her hand under his collar now for sure. “Keep going.”

“Well,” Finn coughs, squirming in the seat, feeling very warm between the two of them, sure Poe was watching somehow, in the near-blackness. “I have a...uhh...containment device, right? If it’ll—if—it fits.”

“I mean it has to,” Poe says. “Right? That’s what the guy who sold it to us uhhh…”

Rey shifts up into Finn’s lap on the bench seat, kissing Finn and as she sees Poe start to slide for the door she keeps going over his lap and then straight into Poe’s, grabbing the creaking leather lapels of his jacket and sitting right in his lap, feeling his jeans through her pantyhose. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I figured I wasn’t—”

“You figured wrong,” Rey says, tipping her chin back and looking at him, letting go of her firm hold on his jacket, sliding her hands under to the soft t-shirt beneath and over his chest. “We want you here. Plus, _finally_ we have an excuse if everybody thinks we’re making out anyway. Besides, you won fair and square.”

Finn has a blissed-out smile on his face already, and fiddles nervously with his glasses again. They have smears from Rey’s nose on them, so he’ll have to clean them, but, uh, later.

It takes Finn a moment to realize that the hand on the back of his head is mirrored by a hand on the back of Poe’s head, and she’s actually pushing their lips together. She’s shifted, a bare knee between each of their legs now. “Go on.”

Finn’s too startled to do anything.

Poe pauses just a minute, taking in Finn’s ‘deer-in-headlights’ look. He pushes his hands gently against Finn’s chest. It means he shifts against Rey’s knee and she can feel that he’s already starting to get hard.

“This okay, buddy? We don’t have to,” Poe says, still a little confused as to whether this is serious, or just for part of the cover. Of course, there’s no one out here to see, and with Rey being the initiator, Poe’s just all turned around.

“Yes!” Finn says, sounding way more exasperated than he means to, it’s just that he’s been sending this ostensibly intelligent guy what he feels have been obvious signals for a while. “Why do you think I always suggest we start here? With both of you? It’s nowhere near—”

Rey laughs and leans in to kiss him quiet, and Finn allows this. She tastes like french fries, but it’s still a good kiss that tingles all the way to his toes.

Now that she has them where she wants them, Rey can be patient. “Go on, Poe. For luck.”

“For luck,” Poe agrees, leaning in to kiss Finn too, shifting all their bodies on the big front bench seat but it’s still pretty cramped in there, and he’s starting to lose track of their bodies as he kisses Finn and Rey touches Poe, curling her hands into his hair as Poe hangs onto Finn’s cardigan and the minutes pass.

The car windows steam up somewhere and their bodies tangle up and it’s Poe, dazed, who remembers. “Wait! You’ve been trying to make this happen this whole time?”

“He’s so pretty,” Rey says to Finn, around Poe who’s wrapped up in both their bodies. “And he races fast, but he’s so slow.”

“ _So_ slow!” Finn agrees too readily, and has to cling to Poe to keep him from drawing back. “But he has so many other fine qualities!”

Finn has ended up on the bottom of this pile, with their combined weight in his lap, which is exactly where he wants to be. He’s seen them do amazing things with cars and bikes, and wants to see how they ride _him_.

His glasses have ended up in the back seat and he has one hand up Rey’s skirt and the other up Poe’s shirt when they hear an odd rumbling sound, and pause, and then Finn catches sight of an unusual light coming from the road. “Uh...guys?”

Rey groans, aggravated, her hands on Finn’s thighs, and sits up just as the lights flood the interior of the car, hazed out by the fogged up windows.

“Busted,” Poe says, sounding breathless, and sitting up to run his hands through his hair and try to compose himself.

The officer taps lightly on the window, politely, having given them all time enough to pull their clothes straight, though Poe’s sure when he rolls down the steamed up window that he looks utterly debauched.

“Alright, you kids,” the policeman says. “Now, I’m just obliged to make sure everybody’s here because they want to be, and perhaps give a little reminder about loitering.”

“We’re, uh,” Poe gets his story together. “Sorry, officer. We’re just UFO  hunting.”

“Are you now?” the officer sounds amused. “And you, miss? Seen any objects you can’t identify?”

His tone is gentle, but offers her a chance to ask for help if she wants it.

“No, sir,” Rey grins at him. “So far only things I know very well.”

“Alright, kids,” the cop says, giving the car a friendly pat. “I’m glad you haven’t been drinking. Maybe find some place a little more private—like home.”

“Yes, officer,” Finn says, trying not to die of mortification. Of course the second he gets Poe and Rey alone they attract the interest of officers of the law and told to move along! At least it was a friendly encounter—and at least it didn’t happen while they had an alien in their trunk.

“Uuuuughhhh,” Finn groans loudly once the window is rolled up. “Okay, okay, let’s drive to the old barn. We really should start there.”

Poe just half-collapses back in his seat in a fit of nervous laughter, before he manages to gasp out, “Wait ‘til my dad hears about this!”

But as Rey goes to slide back into the driver’s seat, Finn takes her hand, and Poe’s. “Can we do this again sometime?”

“Yes!” Rey says, almost too forcefully. She fluffs her skirt into place, and then reconsiders, glancing around Finn at Poe. “Right?”

“Yeah, uh, yeah!” Poe manages eloquently. He’s grinning brightly, too. “I’d like that. Maybe next time where we won’t get interrupted by a cop.”

Finn grins. He’s got an arm over the back of the seat, looking for his glasses. “You got a place in mind?”

As Rey turns the car on, just before the headlights come on, something catches in the corner of Poe’s eye, down below the outcropping they’re parked on. He reaches out to stop her from turning the lights on but he’s too slow, the headlights flood the area, and then when he turns them back off, reaching over Rey’s hands, either the strange light he’d seen has vanished or his eyes are no longer adjusted enough to see.

“What?” Rey asks, as she turns the lights back on.

“I thought I saw little green lights moving around down there,” Poe says. “You know, ghost lights or something.”

Poe has good eyes as well as pretty ones, so Finn and Rey nod.

“Let’s check it out.”

Finn pulls a shotgun from under the seat and cleans his glasses. He’s the best marksman, but only if he can see.

“Boy, you’re gonna feel silly if it’s just like a cat or something,” Poe says, but he trusts Finn’s aim and good sense, and Rey guides them carefully down into the driveway of the abandoned farm, before she cuts the engine and they all gear up. Poe pulls the little EMF frequency reader out of his pocket and sticks the batteries in it after brushing a few hamburger crumbs off the face. He has to extend the huge antenna out, and then he fires it up.

It gives a sharp squeal and then goes quiet, and Poe tries to look for the source of the initial response, sweeping it from side to side, but despite the whole thing lighting up bright when he’d first turned it on, he gets no other indicator of any activity.

“Did you break it?” Rey asks, as she pulls on Finn’s letterman jacket against the chilly night air.  “Let me see.”

“Nah, I didn’t break it,” Poe says, turning the knobs. “I think it just turned on weird.”

“It might be trying to hide from us.” Finn holds the shotgun down, but ready. “Do you...feel that?”

“Yeah,” Rey says, though what they ‘feel’ is a mystery to Poe. Like a vibration in the air, maybe, or a sound that their ears can pick up but his can’t. “I think...there!”

Rey turns the flashlight just in time to see a thin, pale figure dash behind the barn—at the same time Poe’s EMF reader squeals. They take off running, Finn and Rey peeling off the way the alien went, while Poe goes around the other side.

They meet around the back, hearts pounding.

“Did you see anything?”

“I mean,” Poe sweeps the EMF reader side-to-side, trying to pick anything up again. “We probably terrified it!”

“That’s silly,” Rey says. “Hey! Alien! We’re friendly!”

They start sweeping the barn carefully, Rey with the flashlight and Poe with the EMF reader. Poe chuckles. “I mean, that’d probably be more believable if we weren’t chasing it with a shotgun.”

“Hey, if it doesn’t shoot at me, I won’t shoot at it,” Finn says.

Poe fiddles with the dial, and then yelps loud enough to startle both of them.

“What?” Rey demands.

“My race! We gotta get back!” Poe exclaims.

Finn splutters and laughs, thinking he’s kidding, and actually keeps looking around for a minute before he realizes Poe is already heading for the car. “Wait, seriously?”

“Poe!” Rye complains, and stomps her foot, because they’re so close. “I thought you only raced to get better contacts—we don’t _need_ contacts now, we’ve almost found it!”

“I got money on this race!” Poe calls over his shoulder, as he takes the battery out of the EMF reader and starts folding it back up to go into his pocket. “I gotta be there!”

Rey groans, but she’s got no choice if she doesn’t want Poe to hotwire her car and leave them there with the alien (which she doesn’t really think he’d do, but better keep him happy). She follows Poe out, grabbing Finn’s hand with her own. “Well at least we’ll know where to start, tomorrow.”

Finn keeps looking behind them, but they make it back to the car without any sightings.

“Maybe it's scared of the gun,” he admits. “I just hate for it to attack one of us and…”

Poe isn't listening, hurrying Rey to start the car.

“You know, this kind of ruins your cool guy image, being this stressed about a race,” Finn teases.

“You want to drive?” Rey challenges.

“This bucket couldn’t handle me,” Poe tells her. “Besides, you know what else ruins my cool guy image? Chasing aliens around in the dark.”

“And yet, you’re here,” Finn says knowingly, as Rey drives them carefully back to the road.

He leans over to kiss Finn’s cheek, daring to do so now that they’ve opened things up between them. “If I win, we can celebrate at my place, okay? Will that make it up to you guys?”

Finn is surprised by the kiss, even after all of that, and he touches his cheek, grinning. He teases, trying to sound scandalized, “I don’t know, Rey. Going to the home of a young man after dark?”

“Only if he wins. Otherwise we’re coming back out here to find this thing!” Rey takes them back to the town without so much as a half glance back, grumbling to herself about what she does for her two easily distracted boyfriends.

Since Poe has his arm on the back of the seat, Finn leans into his shoulder, whispering “I hope you win.”

“Me too,” Poe agrees.

Rey pinches his thigh.

-

When they’re back at the restaurant, Poe all but launches himself out of the car, and Rey’s friends call her over, leaving Finn to be the nerdy wallflower, still sitting in the car. He still can’t believe just an hour ago he’d been necking with two of the prettiest people on the planet—and now he’s staring at his books again.

Of course Finn’s immediately back to his books, so Poe pulls up on his motorcycle and honks at him with the silly little high-pitched horn. “Hey! Get on the back. I need at least one person cheering for me in the crowd. Besides, how else will I prove I won if you don’t see it?”

Finn peers out of the car, seeing a pack of leather-jacket-wearing, hair-combing racers gathered around, watching. They exude cool, and Finn flushes under their gaze, but Poe’s eyes are inviting, and sweet, and Finn bites his lip. Who was he to say no to those curls? That smile?

The gorillas on bikes whoop and wolf-whistle as Finn slides out the window and onto Poe’s bike, supposing that his notes will be safe in Rey’s car. He clings to Poe’s jacket, breathing in the scent of it, and whatever Poe’s hair product is. “Okay, okay. Where’s the finish line?”

Poe shifts up a little, giving the bike a rev so Finn can feel it shake and rumble. “It’s a circuit, once around the whole neighborhood.”

Letting the back tire squeal on the pavement, Poe holds the front break until the bike leaves a smoking track of black rubber on the pavement before he joins the others at the starting line, giving them a cheeky grin.

“You fellas ready to lose?” Poe calls.

“Not to that ancient bucket of bolts,” one calls back, grinning. “You gonna keep that ballast?”

Poe glances over his shoulder at Finn, grinning. “Sure! I’ll take you double or nothing that I can win even with all the extra weight on the back.”

“What?” Finn yelps, scrambling down, though Poe snakes an arm back around him. “No! I don’t have a helmet! Poe!”

The guys are laughing, and this is at once Finn’s nightmare and a dream come true.

Rey presses a helmet to Finn’s elbow, and kisses his cheek and then Poe’s. “For luck,” she says, and then leans forward to whisper something in Poe’s ear that has _him_ blushing. He grins at her, cheeks pink, and then crouches low over his bike.

He breathes out, focuses, lets his world narrow to the sounds of his bike and the others, the four other town hotshots lined up for the race,  a brave girl with two checkered flags standing in the middle with the flags raised and ready. For a moment, there’s stillness in his heart. Poe can feel Finn holding on tight to his waist, and Finn’s heart beating against his back, and he gives Finn a pat over the back of his hands, reassuring, just before it’s time to go.

Of course it’s more suspense and build up than actual race, and Poe doesn’t wheelie off the line this time because Finn helps keep him balanced as the back tire pushes harder than the front tire can keep up with, and then they’re off the line and rocketing forward. There’s far more of a competition this time, the other cyclists can accelerate much faster than a car, light weight and needing less torque to pull.

It’s heart-clenching, Poe nearly lays the bike down around the corners to take the turns sharply, and it’s not until the last stretch he manages to pull away from the pack, opening the bike up into a truly terrifying speed where the relationship between it and friction and the road is tenuous at best. It’s still close, they win by a front wheel and a desperate bid, and Poe has to slow the bike down very slowly this time, letting speed drain on its own rather than any attempts to brake.

Then he whoops, in clear joy. Less than two minutes of real time, but it seems like a small eternity has passed.

“Yeah!” Finn screams, realizing they've won—that _Poe_ has won—rather belatedly, and even more belatedly, realizing that he had actually kept his eyes open the whole time. When they slow and turn back to the crowd and stop, Finn almost forgets to take off his helmet before kissing Poe. Everyone cheers again. When Rey breaks through the crowd and kisses Poe, they cheer again, even louder.

“You're one hell of a racer!” Finn beams, clapping him on the back.

“You’re not half bad yourself,” Poe tells him, grinning brightly. “You’ve got good instincts when to lean.”

Finn doesn't tell Poe that he knew when to lean because he seemed to sense it from Poe, like he seems to sense a lot. Instead he shrugs, thinking Poe might be just flattering him, anyway. Rey shoves them both a little, and then helps Finn off the motorcycle while Poe goes to collect and chat it up with the other bikers.

“You know, I think he likes kissing us,” Rey says, leaning against Finn. “What a shame he didn’t figure that out earlier! I thought he loved that silly speed machine of his too much to figure anything else out.”

Finn slips an arm around her shoulders, and might have offered her his sweater if she weren't already wearing it. “I'm glad we got him to see reason. Sorta.”

Rey turns and grins at him, and kisses his nose.

“Do you think maybe we should—instead of going to Poe’s place—maybe look around some more for—” Finn starts.

“No,” Rey said immediately, with a stony face.

Poe gives them a wave, gesturing them to come along in Rey’s car as he tucks a hefty stack of folded bills into his pocket, though he does promise the guys a chance to win it back the next week when they all meet up again.

“Let’s go,” Rey says. “Aliens tomorrow, tonight’s ours.”

She and Finn hop in the car, and follow as Poe takes a more sane speed and route back to his place. It’s not much, but it’s his own, a little over-garage apartment that he can park his bike under. The roof’s a little low in places, but there’s enough space for a little kitchenette and he barely even uses that, given how often he eats at the drive-in.

He holds the door open for them and flicks the light on, stripping off his jacket as they step in and make themselves at home. “I could probably use a shower, if you wanna—”

Rey does not ‘wanna’, so she takes the jacket from him and throws it at his ugly couch, puts her bare feet (having kicked her ballet flats off already) on top of his boots and kisses him. “Shower after, it’ll be smarter.”

Poe laughs nervously. “I guess if you can stand the smell of uh, engine grease and gas…”

Finn’s never been to Poe’s apartment, and it's sparse but nice, calculated sloppiness like the rest of him. He likes just watching Rey and Poe kissing, and stands in the door still holding his books.

“Finn,” Rey says impatiently—most boys she had to beat off with sticks, but these two seem so timid—and summons Finn to her side, holding out a hand.

Finn leaves his glasses next to Poe’s keys.

They trade kisses for a while, languid, like they have all night, though it’s getting truly late now, nearly midnight if it’s not already past, and Poe has to take it in increments to get his boots off as they both keep kissing him and somewhere between the door and his bed, he realizes how truly lucky he is before he sits up.

“Wait,” Poe says, and Rey groans. “This isn’t…all just for the cover? I mean I knew you two had a thing, but I didn’t realize…”

“The only thing I want covered is you,” Finn says, with utter confidence, which both Rey and Poe laugh at.

“You're such a nerd. Even in real life,” Rey says, and tucks Finn under her on Poe’s narrow bed. She sits up, straddling their hips.

“We can all have a thing,” Rey says, flatly. “Right Finn? A mutual thing. A thing that goes three ways. That kind of thing. You invited us back to your place, so I figure you must have that thing too.”

“Right,” Finn says, rolling slightly to one side so he can paw through Poe's curls, working crunchy hair product out.

She looks at them slyly, and puts her hand right over Poe's crotch, then makes an enlightened noise. “I guessed right.”

Laughing nervously, Poe shifts back on the bed as she undoes his jeans and tries to peel them off. “Uh, I gotta kinda… shimmy.”

“They're so tight!” she laughs. “Do you put them on _wet_? Finn, help me with these!”

Finn laughs, and they tumble around the small bed, rambunctious, energetic, giggling as they kiss and touch, as though for the first time. Eventually Poe gets out of his jeans, though it does take some doing given that his friends aren’t nearly as helpful as they seem like they’re trying to be. Finally he wrangles Finn’s shirt off, but he’s a little gentler unbuttoning Rey’s dress.

“You know, I really love the way this thing swishes around when you skate,” Poe says, leaning over her, pressing a kiss to her collarbone, and then to each of her rough hands. “This okay?”

“Good, next time _you_ can wear one, and yes, that’s okay,” Rey laughs at him, though she really is flattered. Poe gives her a knowing smile, and then a sort of ‘watch this’ gesture to Finn before he flips her skirts up to her waist and drops down on his elbows to kiss the insides of her thighs and upwards, onto the fabric of her underwear.

“Oh,” Finn and Rey say at the same time, like they had only just realized the applications of this. Rey moans and opens her legs, and Finn feels a little lost as to what to do—except watch an apparent master work—until Rey tugs him into a kiss.

“Help me get this thing off,” Rey begs Finn, like she could do it without moving out of range of Poe's mouth. She's certainly determined to _try_.

With Rey directing as Poe does his best to distract her right through her underwear, they eventually manage to get the dress off over her head, and Poe peels her underwear off definitely wet before he gets his mouth back onto her, and her hands go into his hair, before he draws back despite the fact that she tries to lock her ankles around his shoulders.

“How, uh, do we wanna arrange all this?” Poe asks, kissing the inside of Rey’s thigh again and gently untangling himself. He reaches out to pull Finn to him, kissing the taste of Rey into his mouth. “I mean, what’s the ground rules?”

“Ugh, don't stop!” Rey grunts, though she understands what Poe's doing and why.

Finn is grateful, a little overwhelmed and unsure how to proceed. He has so much love in him for these two and isn't sure how to show it: isn't sure what to do, or even quite what to say. Not that he wants everything to just be done _to_ him, either... 

“Can we...talk, as we go?” he asks. Maybe sex and what to do during it is natural to everyone else—not that Finn doesn’t understand the basics, but he likes thinking things through, not just divining them telepathically or whatever it was he suspects other people do.

“Yeah, we should,” Poe says, smiling at Finn. “It’s good to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

Rey looks like she wants to glare at him, and then softens. “You're so sweet, Finn. Come here.”

Finn gratefully slides into her arms, and lets her scratch her fingernails through his hair.

“So, I think Rey wants me to finish what I was doing?” Poe says, and Rey nods, biting her lip, pulling Finn against her. “And maybe Rey can tell you what she wants.”

“Hmmm!” Rey considers Finn, and all the options he presents. She looks at him warmly, like she’s not sure where to start, and then her eyes glaze over when Poe goes back to doing what he had been, and she beckons Finn closer to whisper in his ear. “Can I taste you? I’d like that…”

Finn swallows audibly, but his smile could light up the whole town. “Uh—yeah!”

He looks around them, wondering if the bed is big enough. “Maybe we could all—taste each other? I’d like that.”

Rey answers Finn with a kiss, already sitting up to rearrange herself. “I think we’d all like that. Poe?”

“Might take a little contortion,” Poe says, taking a minute to breathe. “Or, we could take turns? I’d like that.”

Rey nods, biting her lip, and then they all shift until they can reach each other, all laying on their sides in a sort of triangle formation that’s… a little awkward but not the worst, and only difficult because Poe’s bed is fairly narrow, but they’re young and flexible and creative. Rey enthusiastically pulls Finn’s hips towards her, getting her hand on him to guide him to her mouth, and her other hand still tangled in Poe’s curls as they all try to keep focus and pay attention to what they’re doing through what's being done to them, moaning shifting with how good it is.

It’s more difficult to focus on the oral task with the distraction, which Finn should have calculated for, but didn’t. However, it’s also very easy to get lost in the task, especially with their sweet moans joining his. Rey comes first, with a soft and somehow ladylike grunt, but she doesn’t let Poe stop, tightening her fingers in his hair. Finn, probably at the sight of that (as much as he can see anyway) finishes next, and whines from oversensitivity until she pulls off him.

Now they both have Poe to focus on, and this requires less contortion, anyway. Finn slicks his fingers with spit and teases Poe’s entrance, wondering if Poe will ask him to stop, and realizes he’s finally taken some initiative! If the way Poe’s thighs are trembling is any indication—cool, calm, collected Poe—then he’s onto something.

Poe gasps and shifts and sighs, and then finally pulls away from Rey, reaching up to untangle her fingers from her hair and press a messy kiss to her palm. Then he gasps against it, open-mouthed and breath stuttering out of him as Finn eases his fingers teasingly just inside Poe, and it’s enough for him to lose himself over the edge, soft and gentle and sweet as he muffles a cry against Rey’s palm and then goes soft, a weight over her body.

Rey reaches for Finn, then, and pulls Poe up to rest beside her as he catches his breath, watching both of them with glassy, bright eyes. She shifts between them. “I want you both to keep touching me… I could go again.”

“I know,” Poe says, smiling. “I know you can. Here, Finn, help me out, huh? Your hands are pretty talented.”

Poe reaches down to hoist Rey’s leg up over his hip, leaving her open to both of them as he gets his thumb on her, and Finn starts working her open, both of them teasing and slow.

So this is what it feels like to go with an instinct and get it right, Finn thinks gleefully, as they bring Rey to the height of pleasure again. Finn kisses his way across her face and chest to kiss Poe, to taste Rey on his lips, and he moans, halfway sure he could come again if he needed to.

He doesn’t need to. Rey gasps and tightens her muscles around his fingers, her lower half trembling out her orgasm, and then she lays still. Her hair is half in its ponytail, half out, and she’s glistening with sweat. Finn thinks she looks good.

And Rey thinks they look good.

“ _Yeah_ ,” she hums, getting an arm around the backs of their necks to pull them in for a kiss, first, and then to rest on her chest, staring at her and at each other. There’s barely enough room on the bed for them like this.

Poe puts his arm out, reaching for Finn to pull him closer against Rey, and then he goes quiet for a few long minutes as they lay together, warm and comfortable, before the start of a chill sets in and he sighs, peeling himself up off the bed, kissing them both.

“Anybody joining me in the shower? It’s pretty small but I bet if we tried we could all fit,” he offers, with a half-shrug. “It’ll be more comfortable to sleep if _I’m_ clean at least. I think I even have a couple of extra new toothbrushes around.”

He pauses to pick Rey’s discarded dress up off the floor and give it a shake so it doesn’t wrinkle up since he knows she has to work tomorrow. He puts it on a hangar in the bathroom to steam.

Rey and Finn peer up at Poe from the bed, their eyes actually shining, with awe, love, admiration, or something else.

“You’re too sweet,” she says.

Finn’s comfortable and wants to sleep, but when Rey gets up he follows her, and they share the tiny shower pressed against each other, this time sharing soft, gentle kisses rather than passion-fueled ones. Finn wants to ask about the toothbrushes (does Poe regularly have people over? Was he hoping they would join him the whole time?), but decides it might ruin the moment.

“We still have an alien to find,” Finn says, staring pointedly at his pile of books and notes.

“In the morning,” Rey groans, and pulls him to bed.

-

The day stretches longer than they anticipate, a Friday that goes on and on, and after Rey’s shift they go to dance at a hop at one of the city’s dance-halls when Rey’s friends invite them. Somewhere between Poe getting hypnotized by how good Finn is at dancing and how bright Rey’s smile is when he gets to step in and swing her into a spin, they all lose track of time until Rey leans in and reminds Poe, breathless.

“We have to go to the barn!”

For a moment it’s totally nonsensical and he tries to figure out if it’s a new dance step he doesn’t know before she starts leading him off the floor and then he remembers that they have a job to do.

They look around, but Finn is now up on stage, _apparently_ skilled at playing the upright bass without either of them knowing about it, so they have to wait for the end of the song before they can drag him down.

“We have to keep looking for it!” Rey shouts over the next song beginning.

Finn blinks at her, then checks his watch. His eyes bug out comically, and he grabs their hands to haul them outside. “It’s dark already! How did it get so late?”

“I don’t know,” Rey says, and the way the wind whips her hair makes her look dramatic when she says, “but I’m worried we might be too late.”

They pull up to the old barn in Rey’s car, with Poe on his motorcycle behind them.

“Well, there’s no way the aliens didn’t hear us coming,” Finn says, thinking Poe maybe shouldn’t have brought his bike (though Rey’s car is hardly any quieter).

“Hopefully there’s only the one alien,” Poe says. “Besides, we found it yesterday, it already knew we were coming.”

He pulls the EMF reader out of his pocket again and extends the big old antenna and then switches it on, and it immediately lights up with a low-level hum, and he shows both of them.

“That seems pretty intense,” Rey says. She pulls the barn door open just a little, and then turns on her flash light, sweeping the area, and then yelping suddenly.

A massive pair of luminous eyes sweeps toward her in the darkness, as the creature filling the back of the barn freezes.

“...It’s…bigger…today,” Rey says, very softly.

“Oh, crap,” Finn says, maneuvering in front of Rey and Poe, but not raising the shotgun yet. In fact, he shifts his grip to one hand and holds up the other hand. “Hey, there, fella. Easy. We’re just trying to help you out, man.”

Rey’s flashlight illuminates even more of the alien, showing it to be about eight feet tall this time, brown and wrinkly, with a huge, freaky-looking head, and huge clawed hands. It rears back from the light, and Finn tries again, moving forward, hand held out flat.

“Look, we’re not going to hurt you. We just want to get you into—ah—this containment—which isn’t big enough, I’m realizing. Uh. We just want to help you get home. Do you understand me?”

The creature gives a low noise, looking at each of the three of them, slowly. It breathes in, like it’s trying to take their scent, and shifts a little, side to side, craning it’s neck to see past the light until Poe reaches out to push Rey’s arm down a little so the light isn’t right in it’s eyes.

Very, very carefully it moves forward, eyes on Finn’s shotgun first, but then toward his outstretched empty hand. It almost seems to scent him, and then lifts one massive claw very delicately off the floor, and holds it’s own hand out, palm up, just like Finn.

“Oh boy, uh, I think it likes you, Finn,” Poe says, quietly. “How do we get it out of here? It’s not like it’ll fit in the car.”

“It must be a baby,” Rey realizes. “It’s been growing so _fast!_ How big do these things get?”

“If that’s a baby,” Poe answers, as the creature follows their conversation with it’s gaze. “We don’t wanna have to worry about transporting an adult.”

“Can we call for help?” Finn asks, feeling more alarmed than honored that this... _baby_...thing seems to trust him. “I mean, this seems like a thing to call for help over.”

Finn reaches behind him to hand the gun off, and approaches slowly with both hands up. “Does it need water? Or food?”

Rey and Poe look at each other, shrugging.

“Uh, I think we still have a few burgers in the car?”

“Poe, can you call the General? Please?”

“Uhhhh, yeah. Yeah I think you’re right,” Poe says, folding the EMF reader back up, and then turning it over and switching a few knobs around until he can get a Comm signal. “Finn, keep talking to it. Rey, slowly go to the car and maybe bring back the food? I think it’s been…”

He glances around while he waits for the signal to go through, and there’s _definitely_ less hay than there had been in this barn yesterday when they’d been looking.  Suddenly, Leia’s voice comes through on the radio.

“Well, Commander, do you have it?” she says.

“There’s, uh, a wrinkle,” Poe explains. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to get this fella out of here without any disruption at all.”

“It’s very important that we not disturb the culture on that planet,” Leia says.

“Believe me, that’s the last thing I wanna do, but if this thing gets any bigger, it’s gonna be a heck of a disturbance.”

Finn puts his hand in the creature’s patient, outstretched palm, his fingers dwarfed by the claws, and it makes a soft, songlike noise, almost pretty, maybe the sound of air through the complex nasal chambers that give it such an unusual appearance, and its hand glows green under Finn’s, and gets a warmth to it.

“Well, uh,” Finn says, laughing a little breathlessly, and daring to smile. “That’s...neat.”

“Wait,” Rey says, approaching with the bag of burgers. “I think I—I understood that—I think it said something!”

She turned to the alien, unwrapping a burger. “Are you hungry?”

“Commander, you’re just going to have to figure out how—hang on—”

The alien, meanwhile, sniffs interestedly at the burger, and makes a soft whining hum again. Rey smiles, all teeth. “Yes! Yes, you can eat it. Do you eat meat? I don’t know, actually, if you can eat it…”

But the alien is determined to try, swiping up the burger in a claw and sitting down, quite innocently, to enjoy the snack. There’s a tense moment of silence as they wait for a verdict, and then the alien is up again, whining for more. Rey laughs and gives over the whole bag.

“Commander,” comes Leia’s voice. “Corporal Tico says she can get a cloaked ship down to you, but you need to rendezvous at your pickup coordinates in three standard hours. Tell me you don’t need anything larger than a transport.”

“The _Falcon_ would be fine,” Poe says, as the creature just eats the bag of food wholesale, immediately snuffling his friends for more food and humming a soft, plaintive melody. “I think it’s growing in front of our eyes.”

“Where are we going to get enough food for her?” Rey asks, as it touches her hand, too, very gently with one glowing lit-up palm. “She’s very hungry.”

“I’ve never seen anything like her before,” Poe says, but his voice is full of wonder rather than fear. “But I’m sure we can figure something out.”

“Roger,” Leia says. “Get to the rendezvous.”

Finn is smiling up at the alien, and they almost think they have this before they are all startled by a banging on the door to the barn. “‘Ey! Who’s there? You kids shouldn’t be playing in here!”

They all jump, and the alien lurches back to her feet, whining sadly and scared, huddling by Finn. “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he tells her. “Poe! Can you go—?”

Rey steps up beside Poe, and ruffles his hair, and kisses him hard enough to leave their lips pink and wet, and she crumples up her dress sufficiently before following him out.

“Sorry, sir,” Poe says, kicking one of his riding boots into the shadows as he heads for the door, and unzipping his jacket to untuck his shirt before he joins Rey to hold the farmer off while Finn slips out the back with the huge alien in tow. “We thought this place was uh, abandoned.”

He looks as bashful as he can, one socked foot on the bare ground. Hopefully they can find a way to get to the rendezvous point without getting arrested for trespassing.

“You two kids been mucking around in my hay barn these last few nights, and I’ve had enough of it,” the man accuses.

“Okay, sir, we’ll uh…just let me get my boot?”

“I want your names, I’m gonna report this!” the man says. “I’ve already taken your license plates down, so don’t try lying to me!”

Finn knows he has to open the huge back doors for the alien to get out, and he isn’t sure how to tell her to be quiet, nor can he understand her, like Rey seemed to be able to. The doors creak when they open, and the alien whines again.

Out front, Rey and Poe stiffen.

“What the hell’s going on in there?!”

“I’m sorry,” Rey says, mostly to Poe, before she swings.

“What?” Poe asks, but he picks up on the idea, swinging too, to help get the guy on the ground and pinned down before she really does any damage.  Between the two of them, they manage to knock him out, as the big barn doors crash open, and the panicked alien (having scooped Finn up gently) gallops out the back, leaving a trail of glowing green lights behind her.

“What do we do with him? Do we tie him up?” Poe asks, as he hops around looking for his boot.

“Hopefully we'll be gone by the time he wakes up,” Rey says, tossing him his boot and looking out into the forest. “Now are you driving or am I?”

-

Finn wasn't screaming exactly, but he was shouting in alarm and concern, and some pain, as the alien carried him more like a child would carry a doll, even though he wasn't that much smaller than it.

“Okay, okay, calm down, girl, it's okay, it's—”

But just as he's about to soothe her into stopping, the buzzsaw sound of Poe's motorcycle could be heard fast approaching, and she takes off again, startled, with Finn still screaming at her to stop.

Eventually she slows, as Rey reaches out to her gently with her feelings, and they come to an understanding. Yes, the motorcycle was loud, but it could also cover the rougher terrain more easily than Rey’s old car, and fast enough to keep up with the creature who eventually puts Finn up on her shoulders at Rey’s urging.

“Finally, thank you,” Finn says. This is much easier, and though he’d really rather not be riding a half-crazed baby alien at full-tilt, he’s not going to say as much if it keeps her calm (and seems to impress Rey and Poe).

It’s strange, and her galloping-all-fours gait eats the travel distance up, but it’s hard to stop her from getting distracted. She pauses to eat most of a pumpkin patch, and Poe winces at that but he’d rather she eat that than anything more sinister.

“Well of course she eats a lot,” Rey explains. “She’s just a baby!”

“I don’t suppose we know where her momma is?” Poe asks her, as Finn and Rey try to coax her away from finishing off the last of the season’s corn.

“I really hope her mom didn’t land here, too,” Finn groans, stretching away the awkward soreness. “Any chance I can ride with you guys?”

Eventually, they make it to the rendezvous point, and Finn really has been on this planet too long because seeing the shape of the _Millenium Falcon_ flicker into existence over idyllic pasture land is almost jarring.

Rey’s heart leaps at the sight of her ship, and she waves, though she knows Rose can see her. She has a hand on the alien, and it has an appendage around Finn, the combination of which seems to be keeping it calm. Poe seems to be having a moment with his motorcycle.

“I could just bring it with me. Is it any weirder if I disappear with it than without it?” he asks, but Rey shakes her head, and he sighs, patting the bike fondly before he has to leave it behind. “You're breaking my heart.”

“You can keep the pants,” Rey suggests.

“Nope,” Poe says, leaving his jacket with the bike. “But hey, the memories will be good.”

“Please keep the pants,” Finn says, as Rose disembarks—from the direction of the cargo bay.

She hops down, beaming at them and up at the freaky alien like it’s the cutest thing she’s ever seen. And Rey might be able to communicate with it, and it might like Finn, but Rose just has a way with animals, and is actually able to coax it onto the ship without any help from anyone else.

“Oh thank the Maker,” Finn says, as they stand there, watching Rose coo and pet it. “We found it a momma.”

“Just what she deserves,” Poe agrees, easing his arm around Finn’s waist and Rey’s shoulders as they head on board, getting ready to disappear into the night sky again like a shooting star. He glances back once over his shoulder, thinking he’s going to miss this place, but the important parts are coming with him. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
